The Josephine Baker School

The group of schools occupies a trapezoid-shaped plot of land obliterated by the non-aedificandi area corresponding to the location of one building that was demolished. The requirement to refrain from constructing closed volumes based on the rectangle that is a feature of the plot of land, combined with the constraints in terms of density and height, has enabled Dominique Coulon & associés to question the separation of the primary and nursery schools in the brief. His proposal therefore sketches out a unitary organization, deployed with virtuoso skill in the three dimensions of the space between two poles linked by a system of ramps. Thus the nursery school classrooms are pushed to the east, on a floor cantilevered above the entrance, and the primary school classrooms occupy areas to the west overlooking interstitial gardens.